At the concluding scene, when when Moses was saying goodbye, he gave Eliazar the 5 books (Torah) he had written under the direction of God. What Moses was holding in his hand was a worn but modern day portfolio. Charlton Heston said he tried to get Cecil B. DeMille to make them scrolls, which would be more suitable for them, but Cecil B. DeMille refused.
At the end of the movie, after Charlton Heston as Moses has turned over leadership of the Israelites to Joshua, he watches as the Israelites march into Caanan. At this point, Moses was supposed to have been enveloped in the fog coming down from the mountain, but the effect was never completed. As a result, Moses is shown to be standing there watching the Israelites go, and this is closer to what is related in the actual Bible than what Cecil B. DeMille originally intended.
Atleast 14,000 extras and 15,000 animals were used, during the production and acting, as the movie was being filmed.
Because of the numerous scenes that required multiple cameras to be running simultaneously, Paramount had the Mitchell Camera Corporation build additional VistaVision cameras for this production. Decades later, these cameras were highly sought after by special effects companies due to their ability to produce large area negatives on standard 35mm filmstock.
Because the only widescreen process that Paramount used at the time was VistaVision, the screen used for the original release of The Ten Commandments was not as wide as those used for processes such as Cinemascope and Todd-AO, although the movie was a 1956 Technicolor epic.
Celluloid art created the special effects of the Red Sea parting by pouring 300,000 gallons of water into a tank and then playing the film backward.
Considerable controversy exists over who supplied the voice of God for the film, for which no on-screen credit is given. The voice used was heavily modified and mixed with other sound effects, making identification extremely difficult. Various people have either claimed or been rumored to have supplied the voice: Cecil B. DeMille himself (he narrated the film), Charlton Heston and Delos Jewkes, to name a few. DeMille's publicist and biographer Donald Hayne maintains that Heston provided the voice of God at the burning bush, but he himself provided the voice of God giving the commandments. In the 2004 DVD release, Heston in an interview admitted that he was the voice of God.
Despite being credited as costume designers, John L. Jensen and Arnold Friberg did not work primarily in designing any costumes. Jensen was the lead sketch artist, and only worked in sketching out designs for certain costumes. Friberg was primarily hired to design the film's titles, which were hand lettered and photographed over a colored leather background. Friberg also contributed sketches regarding the costuming. The costume for Moses as a shepherd was patterned after one Friberg had already painted, a portrayal of an ancient prophet for "The Childrens Friend", a magazine published by the Primary Association, the children's organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which Friberg is a member.
During the early part of principal photography, Yul Brynner was still on Broadway starring in The King and I. All of his shots on the actual Egyptian locations were done in one day after which he had to fly back to New York.
Every year since 1973, American TV network ABC airs this film on Easter, or Passover. In 1999, when for some reason ABC chose not to televise it, they received numerous irate phone calls from people accustomed to watching it every Easter than they have for any other film they have ever telecast.
Feature film debut of Robert Vaughn.
In adjusted-for-inflation gross, this movie is the top grossing movie in the US that has not benefited from multiple releases. It is generally in the top 3 to top 10 of all-time top grossing films (depending on who made the list and how they accounted for re-releases), adjusted for inflation.
In the initial Egyptian sequence, Nefretiri is referred to as "the throne princess" who "must marry the next Pharaoh." According to ancient Egyptian royal custom, this implies that she is Seti's daughter, who is expected to marry his successor, regardless of her kinship to that man. (The real Nefretiri's parentage is unknown.) But if Seti was explicitly identified as her father, it would be clear that in the end, Ramses married his sister in an incestuous union. This was evidently seen as inappropriate for a 1950s audience that would certainly include children. As a result, Nefretari was only called "the throne princess," without any explanation.
In the scene in which Rameses carried the dead body of his son, (Eugene Mazzola), onto the arms of the statue of Sokar, the body changed from Eugene Mazzola's actual body to a wax dummy. The statue was unable to support Mazzola's actual body weight, and it was also difficult for Mazzola to be stay, motionless, in one place, as if he were dead, after he was placed on the statue.
June 2008 Ranked #10 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Epic".
Just under 5% of the film was actually shot in Egypt.
Last film directed and produced by Cecil B. DeMille, who, despite his fame and success, won only one Oscar, for "The Greatest Show on Earth" - not for his Biblical spectaculars.
One day in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, a casting director for this film approached Jack Peters and his son Jon Peters to ask if Jon wanted to appear in the film, as multitudes of people with dark hair and complexions were needed to cross the Red Sea. Jon was chosen to ride a donkey and lead a goat by rope. He was so excited that he refused to wash off the makeup, when he went home, that night, so he would not have to put it back on the next day.
Originally, when Elmer Bernstein was orchestrating the music to accompany the Great Exodus of the slaves out of Egypt, the music was mournful. Upon hearing it, Cecil B. DeMille ordered him to replace it, substituting joyful, upbeat music to announce the Hebrew slaves' joy, getting their freedom.